


Freedom Is Slavery

by Delphi



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M, Slavery, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-04
Updated: 2007-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-04 11:51:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/Delphi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Albus has held Severus's parole ever since the end of the war?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Freedom Is Slavery

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2007 run of the ADXSS Buggering Bee on Yahoo!Groups. Challenge: _After Severus is captured for being a Death Eater, he is privately sold to Dumbledore as a slave. No one knows that Severus is owned by Dumbledore; how does Severus deal with two masters and being a spy?_

Severus is restless tonight. It's past midnight when Albus looks in on him in his office and finds him still awake amongst a small mountain of scrolls and codices, his hands tracing over ink and vellum as though he might bypass his tired eyes and absorb the words through touch alone. Albus pauses in the doorway, indulging. They are beautiful hands, really. Graceful in a way that is at once fitting and utterly at odds with the rest of him: pale, slender fingers arching back to long wrists that disappear into starched, buttoned cuffs.

The robes are new. Albus purchased them himself just last week, and as always they are of the drab priestly cut that Severus favours. If it were up to him, he would dress Severus in rust-red or deep plum or perhaps twilight blue; but it is not up to him, for all that he holds sole control of Severus's accounts. He might offer a new cloak or gloves or a handsome pair of boots at the holidays, and Severus will humour him to a point, but only so long as he never crosses that line.

"Can I help you with something, Headmaster?" Severus turns, catching him staring. His face falls into shadow, and the lamplight forms a smudgy halo behind him.

Without even reaching out, Albus can feel the exhaustion radiating from his mind, a clumsy swarm of thoughts floating like drowsy bees. He catches the phantom scent of black coffee and fresh fruit, a pang of hunger not his own.

"You should have a nibble and go to bed," he suggests.

Severus only looks at him.

"Really now, Severus, it can wait until morning."

Severus scowls. "Is that an order?" Then those long, lovely fingers unbutton a starched cuff and roll one sleeve back to the elbow, revealing the dark mark smouldering in the colour of cinders.

Albus sighs softly. "My apologies."

He cannot let him go, not with the Apparation examiner coming tomorrow and the school's business open to prying eyes. Not tonight. Thus it is his own fault that Severus cannot sleep.

"Severus—"

"Are _you_ tired, Headmaster? Do you require assistance getting upstairs?" The baring of teeth is very nearly a smile. Its bitterness is familiar, reassuring, even as a barb of it strikes home.

Albus returns it with a gentle smile of his own, his withered hand curling. "I suppose I might."

They set off down the corridor together, the castle cool and quiet in the late winter rain. Albus stops in the kitchen along the way and picks up a small basket of fruit. He takes a ripe plum from the offerings and holds it up briefly against Severus's robes, being fanciful, before taking a bite. His teeth sink easily into the flesh with a burst of sweetness, and the scent surrounds them. It smells like springtime.

Severus reaches over and plucks the plum from his hand, lifting it to his mouth and taking a bite. He returns the rest of it, licking a dab of juice from his lips. And for the thousandth time over the past fifteen years, Albus reminds himself that he does not truly own Severus Snape and should not wish to.

It is a legal technicality, their arrangement. A civilised society does not hold with slavery. He is, strictly speaking, Severus's bondsman: his own reputation the bail staked for Severus's limited freedom and continued service to Hogwarts and the Order. He houses him, and sees him fed, and manages the money he would earn were he allowed to hold assets, and he preserves what he can of Severus's dignity by ensuring that no one outside a very limited Ministry circle knows of this.

Still. On a night such as this, when all is quiet and lonely and Severus is torn between his two masters, he takes an unsavoury comfort in finding himself with the lion's share.

The walk up the winding tower stairway is excruciating. The damp is in his bones tonight, and Severus's inclinations do not always accord with his own. He could order him to help, couched in a request, but he wouldn't. Of all the things Severus claims he would not forgive him for, this one would be fair and genuine. In an odd way, his recent infirmity has given him comfort—a vulnerability on his part to finally balance his dear young man's own.

And so, after the first flight, Severus without comment lends him an arm. His face is dispassionate, more embarrassed by the necessity than Albus himself, who feels a warm stirring at his nearness. Severus, faithful Severus, loving and hateful and his.

They lie together in his darkened bedroom, side by side and silent until he presses just softly into Severus's mind: _dark warm body secret quiet so quiet touch me._

This time there is nothing there that sullies him, nothing that makes it feel like a violation to even ask. If there were, he would be more than content to simply lie here with Severus within arm's reach, and whisper his gratitude into the hollow places in his mind, and take comfort in his company.

Rolling onto his side is a greater effort than it once was, but he manages it. Then he pauses, letting the pain spread, wallowing in it for a moment or two before he shunts the self-pity away.

Beside him, Severus swallows tightly. He can see only the faintest impressions of his face in the darkness, but Severus's mind opens slightly, a deeply moving gesture.

"Shh. It's all right." He kisses him.

Severus tastes of plum, sour-sweet, the inside of his mouth as soft as the delicate flesh of the fruit. Passive at first and then pressing up against him just a little, almost sulkily. Albus suddenly finds himself ravenous, and he savours the ache of it. His body still knows how to want, how to crave, how to stubbornly cling to something it should have lost months ago.

The kiss breaks when Severus suddenly draws back.

"Are you all right?" Albus asks.

Severus nods and cradles his arm against his chest. Albus can feel the heat radiating from it.

_is this all right?_

_ohyes_

He isn't prepared for the hot kiss that's pressed to his shoulder, the cool hand pushing him back. Severus's mouth descends, lips and tongue and teeth. He'll be a mass of bruises in the morning: a bite scraping over his ribs, his belly, easing over the softer flesh. Not quite punishing, no more than a fox punishes the rabbit in its jaws.

Severus's hands follow, his mouth resting against Albus's hip. It's too easy to be distracted by the wet tongue teasing his flesh and the hot breath ghosting across his skin, too easy to go where he isn't welcome as his mind slips deeper into Severus's. But there is an invitation of a subtle kind, a glimpse of naked thoughts deep down at the core of him. Wondrous. He sinks in deep as he pulls Severus up and kisses him again, tasting his mouth and the salt of his skin, feeling desire and brittleness and angry hunger surrounding him.

_oh god please_

Severus will not sleep tonight—he knows that already as they move together in a desperate embrace. But soon. Soon they'll both be free.


End file.
